Digital acceleration, data overload, excessive stimulation on social media and constant pressure for self-improvement. These are some of the challenges that companies need to deal with in face of the radical changes faced in the last few years in the digital environment. But, how the post-Covid customer, also known as the consumer of the future, deals with this daily impact on its life?
To understand how companies can adapt themselves to the market’s continuous changes and outline consumer engagement strategies for the coming years, WGSN released the report “Future Consumer 2024”.
The report presented four new feelings of the customer of the future and the companies’ action points to attract and retain these customers.
What does the customer of the future feel?
1. Multitasking mindset
Before, we made a decision and that was it. Today, we take a decision and think about what is going to happen after.
Antimo Gentile, CEO of DNK Infotelecom, explains that the pandemic boosted customers’ emotions, along with the rising cost of living, giving way to a multitasking mindset.
“New routines, social isolation and more focus in the searching for the balance between personal and professional life has opened space for a constant multitasking mindset, especially for the ones who do home office”, claims Gentile.
The expert also explains that, in fact, only 2.5% of people are multitasking, but the perception of time by the customer of the future is increasingly accelerated and there is no evidence that this perception changes.
“When we think that we are performing multiple tasks at the same time, in fact, we take individual actions in quick succession. However, in 2024, in the future, our perception of time will be increasingly accelerated. The way that the customer of the future understands time is already starting to affect them, as they are used to frequenting Metaverses and virtual realities. It is about a cognitive effect where time passes faster than we think.”
2. Excess of stimuli
According to Gentile, with the boom of digitalization, social media, e-commerce, games and streaming technologies, people are increasingly connected.
Inside this reality, global research performed in 2019 by the Technical University of Denmark has identified one of the collateral effects of this digital transformation: a deep decrease in future consumer’ attention over time.
They said that before, it was common to watch videos between 10 and 30 minutes, but now they lost interest in a matter of minutes.
“The short videos came to stay. An example is the success of Tik Tok and Kwai”, says Gentile.
Gentile continues: “We live in a world of uncertainties and changes. The truth is that the excess of stimuli strongly impacts our senses”.
According to the WGSN report, the sensory balance will be, in 2024, an antidote to over-stimulation. Used by occupational therapists for years, the sensory balance works, in the digital era, to recognize and avoid the appearance of sensory triggers that cause overload.
3. Realistic optimism
Surveys pointed out that people who tend to better deal with the crisis are the ones that do not focus on happy or distraction moments – they accept the suffering, but they are not crushed by it.
“It is the culture of overcoming, that brings a mature look about it,” says Gentile. Maybe it is more interesting to imagine a better world instead of simply trying to fix what is broken.”
Gentile explains its statement through the “FOMO” concept – “Fear Of Missing Out” – that fear of losing something important and “FoNo” (Fear of Normal).
“FOMO is directly related to the internet and social media universes, that brought to people a sense of urgency that can become something serious financially and psychologically. Talking about the customer of the future, the ball of the time is the “FoNo.” People from all over the world start suffering from the “Fear of Normal.”
According to a survey from the Ipsos Institute and the World Economic Forum, with more than 21 thousand adults from 27 countries, 72% of the interviewed would rather have their lives significantly changed rather than go back to what it was like before Covid-19.
“This changes the perspective since it offers the possibility of thinking differently, of creating a “new me,” instead of trying to fix and going back to be what you were”.
4. Enchantment
According to DNK’s CEO, the enchantment is about a feeling of fascination that has remained in the background in recent years. After all, how many times, recently, we could enchant ourselves with something?
“We are living not only one feeling, but multiple feelings, which generates exacerbated humanization”, explains Gentile. “Constant changes in society and technology causes an increasingly intense feeling of apprehension, making us often feel obsolete. It is the case, for example, of the feeling we get when we are just finishing a course, but something new, more modern has already emerged.”
The expert continues: “We are living in an era of zero creativity: it seems that everything we see, we have already seen it before. This is an excess of stimuli. Today, we can no longer be enchanted by any innovation, because there is no time. When we get interested in something, soon comes a more modern update of that something. We need to understand that the excess does not generate enchantment. The enchantment is in the exclusive, in the surprising. It is almost paradoxical.”
Following the same thoughts of Gentile, the WGSN report revealed that, in addition to making people more empathic, the enchantment reduces anxiety.
Another survey, conducted by psychologists from the Stanford and Minnesota (USA) universities, has indicated that the enchantment experience slows down people’s perception of time.
“There is a frequent feeling that time stops in moments of ecstasy,” said Gentile.
According to the expert, experiencing the enchantment expands the customer’s focus in the present moment: “When you are more conscious about now, you have more rich experiences and you believe that more things can happen or be accomplished in a given period of time.”
Customer of the future: who they are and how to conquer them?
The WGSN report has also identified 4 profiles for the customer of the future that will guide the companies’ strategies and that should be prioritized by brands through an analysis of the drivers of people’s behavior, desires and needs.
1. Regulators
After years of uncertainties and impacting changes, this group is based on consistency as a surviving mechanism.
“Regulators are the people traumatized with changes after the uncertainties we had during the pandemic”, explains Gentile.
2. Connectors
Are against the culture of rush, but far from being lazy.
“They are determined to rewrite the rules of entrepreneurship and sharing. They look to have a lighter life with less hustle and bustle”.
3. Memory builders
For the memory builders, Gentile explains that the feelings of guilt and remorse post-lockdown are being transformed into leaner lives and new concepts of family.
“These consumers are focused on living in the present.”
4. Neo-sensorialists
“The neo-sensorialists are the consumers that show themselves really optimistic about new technologies.”
Although the survey had identified four profiles for the customer of the future, DNK’s CEO highlights that all of them have a common point: a need for realignment.
“Regulators, connectors, memory builders and neo-sensorialists have a shared capacity for realignment, whether with themselves, with each other’s world or with the planet as a whole. Companies need to understand each one of these profiles and their feelings to draw the best strategies.”
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